1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to automated business transaction systems, in particular to contract management systems, and more specifically to a system, program product, and methods of facilitating contract procurement and contract management through an online contract procurement and management website.
2. Description of Related Art
Major corporations and other business entities require establishing various controls and business policies and procedures to preserve the integrity of the business process, the adherence to the entity's way of doing business, and the preservation of the entity's business image and reputation. This, in turn, results in a requirement for a great number of forms and other types of documentation, numerous checks and verifications, and supervision and monitoring of numerous participants, among others. While these requirements are important for the reasons mentioned, implementation of steps necessary to satisfy these various procedures and documentation requirements have resulted in bottlenecks and inefficiencies that collectively prolong and complicate the contract procurement process and distract the key participants, such as the entity's contracting specialist or representative and the contract proponent representative, from focusing on creative thinking and quality improvement. Some entities have reacted to this bottlenecking and stifling of creativity and quality improvement by reducing or relaxing instituted controls and documentation requirements.
In some situations, especially in smaller corporations or other small entities where there is a great deal of transparency and whose business transactions are both small in both value and frequency, such relaxation of controls and documentation may have succeeded with tolerable negative consequences. With major corporations or other large entities, however, where the value and number of contracting activities is much larger, the loosening of controls is much riskier and has resulted in extreme negative consequences. Thus, recognized by the applicants is the need for a system that satisfies such control and documentation requirements without complicating or significantly slowing down the contract procurement and management process or significantly distracting participants from creative thinking and quality improvement. That is, recognized is the need for a system that automates the various functions and transactions and with them, the various controls, forms, and documentation requirements.
Corporations and other business entities with frequent and large value contracting requirements must also continuously attempt to optimize competition in order to manage contracting and contract procurement costs. While in some situations, such contracting corporations or other business entities may partner with a limited number of contractors for various business needs, in many situations involving large corporations or other large entities with a wide variety of contracting requirements, there has remained a requirement or desire to continue to invite and evaluate new contractors as well as revalidate previously qualified contractors.
Relying on industry or trade ratings is not always adequate or even possible in some countries or trades. Searching the Internet or reviewing prospective contractors' websites has also proven inadequate to provide much of the specific details needed for a proper prequalification evaluation. As a result, corporations and other business entities, especially large corporations, must solicit prequalification documents from both current and prospective contractors, which, in turn, can cause considerable delays to the contract procurement process and can cause contractors to express frustration with this repetitive requirement. Thus, recognized is the need for a system that minimizes or eliminates continuous repetitive requests for contractor prequalification information, thereby minimizing delays to the contract procurement process.
Although the benefits of online information and document exchange are well known to business entities, small and large, it nevertheless still remains a globally pursued goal to reduce hardcopy documentation with electronic documentation. Hardcopy documents continue to exist on a large scale in contract procurement and management activities, despite the long usage of computers and various automation solutions. In one example, users were provided a structured electronic folder for contracts and encouraged to upload their documentation and save it in that folder, nevertheless, many of the users did not comply and continued with the hardcopy folder because each upload required them to do a “Save As” and to decide where the document should be saved. Given the large number of documents generated every day, the users felt they would be unable to readily manage such documents when in electronic form. This reluctance to electronically store documentation has resulted in delays in the contract procurement process caused by a lack of ready access of the hardcopy documentation by other contracting members who require such documentation. The contracting member holding the “hardcopy” would have to be individually contacted to fax or otherwise transmit the document. Thus, recognized is the need for a contract procurement and management system that provides a user-friendly automated document storage and retrieval methodology to thereby provide an incentive to reduce hardcopy documentation, and that provides ready access to the document by multiple authorized users.
Managers in corporations and other business entities with frequent and large value contracting requirements must also monitor/control the contract procurement and management process and be updated on the latest status and developments. Such managerial requirement typically entails managers having to frequently call for status meetings, request new status reports, or call other concerned individuals and ask for the latest information. Such control requirements has not only been found to be a significant source of distraction to management, concerned individuals, supervisors, administrators, middle managers, and other contracting entity participants, but has been found to be a significant source of contract procurement delays and frustration. Thus, recognized is the need for a contract procurement and management system that provides ready access to automated status reports organized by functional area and/or contract-under-procurement, to thereby provide management frequent status updates seamless to other contracting participants.
Contractor senior officers, e.g. owners, presidents, and/or general managers, also must, but do not, have the ability to easily monitor their assigned representatives' interactions with the contracting entity. As a result, such contractor management is unable to properly intervene when assigned representatives deviate from contractor policies or procedures. In one example, a contractor project manager authorized to represent the contractor company in a particular contract procurement project was terminated by the contractor company. Prior to leaving employment, the contractor project manager faxed a letter requesting that the contractor company withdrawal from bidding on the project. The withdrawal request was about to be accepted as it came from an authorized contractor representative, however, due to the importance of the project, the contractor CEO was contacted for verification. The surprised CEO confirmed his company's continued interest in the project. Many other similar examples also exist. Recognized, therefore, by the applicant is the need to also enable contractor management to instantly and easily monitor interactions between contractor employees and the contracting entity.
Corporations and other business entities often must suspend contractors from doing business with the entity, limit the contracts available to the contractor, e.g., certain types or maximum values, or require nonstandard monitoring, e.g., a preselected level of additional scrutiny at various preselected phases. Although such decisions are properly communicated to the applicable contracting entity participants and/or these individuals are given the ability and instructions to easily verify the status of each contractor at any point in the procurement process, it remains that frequently such contracting entity participants either forget such requirements exist, or, due to time constraints, make a conscious decision to ignore such requirements. If a contracting entity participant fails to perform such check, and a limitation or restriction exists, it is possible that contracting entity participant will violate such limitations. Thus, recognized by the applicant is also the need for a contract procurement and management system that provides automated warnings that notify contracting entity participants of contracting entity imposed limitations throughout functions involving contractor-related decisions.